The throne of Lord Dominus had never been a true throne—just a reinforced seat cobbled together from scavenged steel and padded with the furs of the beasts he had slain. But now, under new ownership, it seemed to shift in purpose. The man who sat in it now was no brutish warlord who reveled in blood and chaos. The Consul, once a quiet observer at Dominus's side, had cast aside his old persona like a discarded cloak, revealing the cold, calculating creature beneath.
Gone was the meek, soft-spoken figure who had played the role of Dominus's right-hand man. Now, he sat with one leg draped lazily over the other, fingers steepled beneath his chin, his gaze sharp and predatory. The Legion stood before him in disciplined ranks, no longer the rowdy pack of raiders they had been under Dominus. Fear had replaced blind loyalty. Promises of reward in Paradise, spoken in the Consul's even, measured tone, had replaced the crude chants of dominance and brutality.
Before him, Snow knelt in chains.
Her wrists were bound in thick iron shackles, her ankles too, linked to a heavy chain that kept her movements sluggish. The dirt beneath her knees was still wet with blood from the night's games. Her body ached from battle, but her glare was sharp, cutting through the dim torchlight.
Beside the throne, Rain stood bound in chains, but this time, they were held by the Consul himself.
She wasn't trembling. She wasn't crying. She had seen through him now, and her disgust was plain in the way her lips curled, the way her dark eyes burned. When she finally spoke, her voice was sharp and cold.
"It was all lies, wasn't it?" she said. "Your story about being one of the Old Ones. About helping Dominus. About believing your kind's suffering was a punishment for your sins." Her voice dripped with contempt. "All of it, just lies."
The Consul's expression did not change. If anything, he looked mildly amused.
"You wound me," he said. "But no. Not all of it was a lie."
Rain scoffed. "Oh, really?"
The Consul tilted his head slightly, as if she were a particularly slow-witted student. "I am one of the Old Ones," he said, voice carrying the weight of undeniable truth. "That part was never false."
Snow's fingers twitched. She had suspected, of course—had guessed at something unnatural in the way he spoke, the way he carried himself. But to hear it spoken aloud was another thing entirely.
The Consul continued, his tone laced with quiet scorn. "You think it was pleasant, living under a brute like Dominus? Watching him fumble his way through leadership, mistaking cruelty for strength? Do you know how difficult it was, someone as… magnificent as me, bowing to a barbarian?" He exhaled, shaking his head as if the memory physically pained him. "I had to play my part. Had to let him think he was in control. All the while, I watched. I waited. And now, at last, he is gone."
He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "And for that, I must thank the two of you."
Snow's jaw tightened.
Rain was less composed. "Thank us?" she spat. "You mean you used us."
The Consul sighed, as if tired of explaining something obvious. "You make it sound so… distasteful."
Snow's voice was low, sharp. "Because it is."
That earned a reaction. The Consul's lips curled slightly, and his eyes flicked toward her. "Ah, the brute speaks." He let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. "You call my kind cowards, but I say we are simply intelligent. Unlike you—primitive humans who live and die chasing the meaningless pursuit of survival." He gestured toward Rain with his free hand. "Or… people like her. Wannabe Old Ones, clinging to dead knowledge like a child clings to a broken toy."
Snow's eyes darkened. "Call her that again, and I'll rip out your tongue."
The Consul raised an eyebrow, but before he could respond, one of his soldiers—a burly man with a crude tattoo of a bleeding skull on his arm—grabbed a fistful of Rain's hair and yanked her head back, pressing the barrel of a repeater against her skull.
Snow stiffened, every muscle locking.
The Consul merely smiled. "You see? That is the difference between you and me." He turned his gaze back to Rain. "Still, I must say, I am impressed."
Rain gave him a murderous glare, but he ignored it. "I never imagined someone so… weak, timid, and naive could accomplish something truly remarkable." He tapped his fingers against the armrest of the throne. "Finding the map to Paradise? That is no small feat."
Snow's fists clenched, her nails digging into her palms. "Say another word about her, and I'll—"
The Consul's gaze snapped to her. "You'll what?" he asked, voice still calm, still controlled. "You'll kill me? You? In chains?" He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "No, no. You will do nothing. Because you can do nothing."
Rain's expression didn't change, but her jaw tensed. "You think you're so clever," she said. "But you're just the worst kind of human left in this world."
The Consul tilted his head, considering her words. Then, with a faint nod, he gestured toward the soldier holding her.
The butt of the repeater slammed into Rain's skull.
She crumpled instantly, her body going limp.
Snow jerked against her chains, rage exploding through her veins. "You son of a—"
"Careful," the Consul interrupted smoothly. "She is still alive. For now." He gestured toward Rain's unconscious form. "And if you want your little smart-mouth to stay that way, you will do exactly as I say."
Snow's breath came hard, her entire body trembling with barely contained fury. But she said nothing.
The Consul nodded approvingly. "Good."
With a flick of his wrist, he gestured for the guards. "Put her in the cage."
Snow was dragged to her feet and hauled away, the chains biting into her skin. She was shoved into a prison wagon, the door slamming shut behind her. The space was cramped, packed with other prisoners—former slaves, some of them barely alive.
Rook sat slouched in the corner, arms folded over his chest. He looked up as she was thrown in, raising an eyebrow. "Well. That can't be good."
Snow rubbed at her wrists, exhaling through her nose. "I need your help," she said.
Rook straightened slightly. "What's going on?"
"I have to pass the Steel Grave."
Rook stared at her for a long moment. Then, with a humorless chuckle, he shook his head. "Shit."
Snow didn't respond.
Rook's expression hardened, and he leaned forward. "Alright," he said. "Whatever it is, I'm in. I owe you and Rain big time anyway."
Outside, the Crimson Legion began packing up their camp.
Soon, the convoy started moving, until they arrived at the destination.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Right now, the Steel Grave stretched before them, a scar upon the land, a reminder of a war that had never truly ended. The Crimson Legion's procession halted at the edge of a vast, broken battlefield. Rusted corpses of tanks and armored carriers lay strewn across the landscape, their hulls split open like the bones of some long-dead beast. Twisted metal and shattered weapons jutted from the earth, remnants of a human offensive long since crushed.
Beyond them, the trench line ran deep and dark, like a wound splitting the earth in two. It stretched far in both directions, cutting a brutal divide between the world of men and the unknown beyond. Beyond the trenches, the graveyard of machines lay silent—hunched, rusted shapes, half-buried in the dirt. Some were toppled, their mechanical limbs twisted into unnatural angles. Others stood eerily intact, their hollow eyes turned toward the horizon, waiting.
From his mobile tower, the Consul observed the scene with an unreadable expression. The tower—once Dominus's personal war-wagon—was a crude thing of steel plates and iron wheels, pulled by a team of horses, its upper deck serving as a throne room on the move. The great warlord's banners had been torn down, replaced by nothing at all.
Beside him, Rain stood chained, her wrists shackled to the armrest of his throne. She was silent, staring out over the desolation. It should have been a sight to marvel at—an entire battlefield frozen in time, a monument to a war fought long before she was born. But she could feel the weight of what was coming. There was no awe, no wonder—only the sickening certainty of what the Consul intended to do next.
Below, the Legion stood in formation, a force far more disciplined than the raiders they had once been. Their weapons were held at the ready, their armor polished, their eyes cold and unreadable. No drunken shouting, no wild jeering—only silence, the silence of trained killers awaiting their orders.
And in front of them, the slaves.
Hundreds of them, unshackled but herded together like cattle, their faces pale and drawn with fear. They had been freed from their chains only to be given a worse fate.
One of them—a gaunt man with sunken eyes—dared to step forward. He fell to his knees, pressing his forehead into the dirt. "Please," he begged, voice raw with desperation. "Please, I—I'll fight in the games! I'll do anything! Just—just don't make us go out there."
The Consul regarded him as one might regard an insect crawling across their boot. "There will be no more 'games,'" he said, his voice smooth, almost pleasant.
Then he gestured.
The man flinched, expecting a blow. Instead, the soldiers around him raised their weapons in unison, barrels aimed at the crowd.
Murmurs of panic rippled through the slaves. A woman clutched her child tightly to her chest. Others whispered hurried prayers to gods long silent.
The Consul spoke again, his voice carrying effortlessly over the wind. "You should be honored," he said, smiling faintly. "You will serve a purpose far greater than yourselves."
His eyes flicked down toward the gaunt man still kneeling at his feet. "You, and all the rest of you, are nothing more than remnants of a dying breed. Primitive. Unworthy. A disgrace to my kind." He exhaled, shaking his head. "But take heart. Even the lowest creature can serve something greater than itself. And today… you will serve me."
With a snap of his fingers, the Legion fired into the air.
The cracks of repeaters shattered the silence, and the slaves did exactly as he had expected—they ran.
They ran toward the trenches, toward the line of broken war machines, toward the Steel Grave.
For a moment, all was chaos.
Then, the machines woke.
They rose from the dirt like corpses dragged from their graves. Rusted joints whined, metal groaned, gears clicked into motion. Some were little more than skeletal frames, their outer armor long since stripped away by scavengers. Others remained nearly whole, their bodies pitted with age but still intact.
And they moved with purpose.
Clawed limbs lashed out. Jagged pincers snapped shut. The first wave of slaves barely had time to scream before they were ripped apart.
Rain flinched, turning her head away—but the Consul caught her chin and forced her to watch.
"Do you see?" he murmured. "Even after all this time, they still guard the path. It's almost poetic."
Below them, the slaughter continued. The machines had long since run out of their Once-World weapons—no bullets, no lasers, no great explosions. But they did not need them. They were built for war, and war they would have.
A massive construct, its lower half fused into a rolling chassis, trampled through the panicked crowd, crushing bodies beneath its treads. Another, its arms ending in long serrated blades, swept through the mass of humanity like a farmer harvesting wheat.
Some of the slaves turned back, scrambling away from the carnage, running toward the safety of the Legion's lines.
The machines did not pursue. They had no need to. Their only purpose was to guard.
And the Consul had counted on that.
He raised his hand again.
The repeaters roared.
Lines of gunfire swept across the field, cutting down the fleeing slaves where they ran.
Rain gasped. "Stop!" she screamed. "Stop, you monster!"
The Consul didn't even glance at her. He merely nodded, and one of his soldiers yanked on her chain, dragging her back. A repeater was pressed against her skull.
"Careful," the Consul murmured. "I'd hate for you to be among the casualties."
Rain's breath came hard, fury burning in her chest—but there was nothing she could do.
Below, the shooting stopped.
Silence settled over the battlefield once more. The slaves were gone, their bodies littering the field, some still tangled in the claws of the machines, others sprawled in the dirt where the Legion had gunned them down.
All except a handful—Snow, Rook, Bricks, And a few others.
The ones Dominus had once kept for the harder fights. The survivors.
The Consul peered down at them with mild interest. "It seems," he mused, "that the old machines' sensors still function." He gestured toward the battlefield. "They kill those who cross the line. But those who remain behind?" He smiled. "It would seem they have a chance."
His gaze returned to the remaining slaves.
"Well then," he said, his tone almost cheerful. "I do hope you'll do better than the last ones."
Below, Rook watched the bodies in the dirt, then glanced up at the man on the throne. He let out a slow breath.
"He's mad," he muttered.
Snow didn't look at him. Her gaze remained fixed on the Consul, her fingers curling into fists.
"I know," she said.
And then, quietly—too quietly for anyone else to hear—
"Be ready."